The Tyranny of Hagia Sophia: Notes on Greek Orthodox Church Design in the United States

Abstract

AT A TIME when many revival styles have come to be appreciated for their considerable intrinsic merits, NeoByzantine of both nineteenth and twentieth centuries continues to receive bad notice. For example, Konstantin Ton's Cathedral of Redeemer in Moscow (18391884), acknowledged by Hitchcock the first major Russian example of Neo-Byzantine, is recognized rather clumsy variant of German Rundbogenstil.' G. H. Hamilton, while identifying Suzdalian element in cathedral, notes dependence of its elevation upon A. A. Montferrand's St. Isaac's at St. Petersburg (I817-I857).2 For him, therefore, Cathedral of Redeemer is a timid compromise between archaeology and clarity of Petersburg classicism.''3 The implicit demand of such criticism is that a Byzantine Revival church should be more than sum of eclectic parts, that it should possess a quality sui generis. The tacit ideal by which buildings such Ton's are here judged is one that Eastern churches of nineteenth century were apparently unable to produce: an ecclesiastical version of what Hitchcock, in a splendid phrase, called Richardson's Pittsburgh Jail (begun year that Ton's cathedral was finished)-a masterpiece of most personal order ... nobly expressive of its gloomy purpose.4 Hamilton acutely comments on r81e of patron in determining exterior appearance of Cathedral of Redeemer, general plan of which was approved by Tsar for churches throughout Russian Empire. Ton's timid compromise, he suggests, was as much age could accept.5 Nearly a century later, client continues to exercise considerable control over design of Orthodox churches; and nowhere is this more evident than in structures for Greek American congregations. Equipped with materials and techniques unknown to revivalists of nineteenth century, contemporary ecclesiastical architect is accustomed to housing his clients' social obligations well customary liturgical requirements. With Greek churches, however, he is further required to satisfy a clergy and a congregation who believe themselves to be esoteric possessors of Orthodox architectural tradition. Any evaluation of Greek church design at midcentury must therefore be seen against historical background and present condition of communities that dispense commissions; and any judgment of churches built (often distinct from structures designed) suggests much about patron it does about builder. As always in American architecture, these churches constitute a part of social history.6